


Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light

by Serie11



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anti-Form (Kingdom Hearts), Body Dysphoria, Bodyswap, Canon-Typical Violence, Egg Metaphors, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Magical Accidents, Magical Devices, Multi, POV Kairi (Kingdom Hearts), Plot, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, SoRiKai Week 2020, Sora Lives (Kingdom Hearts), Trans Character, Trans Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Vanitas Lives (Kingdom Hearts), Worldbuilding, me eating eggs now: bro this shit is DEPRESSING me, this fic has everything!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: When Kairi, Sora, and Riku touch a magical device that makes them switch bodies, things get a little bit crazy for a few days.Includes discussions of the differences between hearts and bodies, Sora tripping over his new feet too many times to count, trans feelings, actual worldbuilding for the Land of Departure, and more egg metaphors than the author should probably have put in this fic; not necessarily in that order.Sorikai week day 3:Childhood Friends|Magic
Relationships: Aqua & Terra & Vanitas & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi/Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58
Collections: Sorikai Week





	Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light

Kairi lifts the small shiny box, tilting it to try and figure out what it is. It sparks and she yelps, fumbling the box before putting it back down. The whole basement is full of stuff like this – things that she has no name for, but which hum with strong magic, enough that it makes her fingers burn when she touches them. 

“Remind me why we’re down here again?” she asks, doubtfully poking at the box one more time before leaving it alone. 

“Aqua hasn’t had enough time to come down and categorise everything that has changed since the Land of Departure went back to normal,” Riku says. “There’s a lot of things that are densely packed with magic in this basement – who knows what the transformation of the castle might have done to them. Or what the Organisation found and moved, or put here, when they were trying to figure out the secrets of Castle Oblivion.”

Kairi hums under her breath. “So then why is Sora here?” 

“Hey!” 

“He can help too,” Riku says, rolling his eyes. “He can concentrate when he needs to.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sora go to where Riku is bent over, looking into a cupboard. Sora hooks an arm around Riku’s middle and pouts at Kairi. “Yeah, what Riku said. Hey, you know you’re my favourite boyfriend?” 

Riku’s cheeks go slightly pink in colour at the praise, but that could also be the effect of the strange ball he’s holding, which is letting off sparkling blue and purple and pink dust every time Riku shakes it. 

“I know that Aqua gave us a list, but I really don’t think it’s much help,” Kairi sighs, pulling her list out of her pocket. Aqua helpfully made a few copies for them, but she doesn’t even know what a ‘Transfiguration Metallurgic Polished Dein Box’ or a ‘Deep Well of Starlight Menace’ is, even if someone told her that it was sitting in front of her. She looks at the box that she had been holding and tries to imagine the purpose of it, to see if it will fit anything that’s on the list. Maybe she should be looking for colours on here instead – that might actually get her somewhere.

“I really think that Aqua might be the only one who can do this,” she says, disheartened. She doesn’t want to give up, not when Aqua is clearly running herself ragged trying to sort out everything wrong with this World after it was restored, but wandering around in her basement probably just a touch away from triggering some horrible explosion or something isn’t really helping anyone. 

“We should have gone out with Terra to help with the Heartless problem,” Sora says. “At least we know what we’re doing there.” 

“That’s Terra’s job,” Riku points out. “I don’t really want to take it from him, not when he’s still trying to adjust to having his own body again.” 

Sora sighs. “I know. But Kairi might be right. Plus, this place is kinda… weird.” 

“Weird how?” Kairi asks, off-put by Sora’s uneasy tone. Sure, there’s a lot of strange objects and devices scattered around, and there’s a healthy amount of latent magic in the air, but none of is it particularly resentful. 

“Hmm,” Sora says. “I don’t really know how to describe it. It just feels familiar, which is strange. I’ve never been here before!” 

“You have been here before,” Riku reminds him quietly. “You just don’t remember your time in Castle Oblivion, because Naminé had to overwrite all of your memories.” 

“Oh, right,” Sora says, smile sliding off his face. Kairi picks up another thing, this one glowing bright yellow with stars jumping into the air from it every few seconds, just so she doesn’t have to see him retreat into himself. He gets this strange look on his face, every time Castle Oblivion is mentioned. Even though Naminé lives in Kairi’s house now, he still hasn’t shaken the melancholy that comes over him whenever his missing memories are discussed. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Kairi tries to reassure him, really trying to reassure herself. “Now you know why is feels familiar, right?” 

“Right,” Sora says unconvincingly. Kairi shoots a look at Riku, but he’s staring at his own list, a strange looking bangle in his hand. Or at least that’s what she thinks it is – it could also be a crown of some kind?

Kairi puts down her ball of crying stars and moves deeper into the room. There’s a door at the back, which she hadn’t noticed before, but there’s a larger thing in front of it. It’s a dome – really, more of an egg shaped, solid glass pillar that comes up to her chest from where it’s resting on the ground. There’s a pulsating crystal at the centre of the glass that beats like a living heart. Three rings surround it, suspended in the air but unmoving otherwise. 

She carefully clears the area beside the door and tries to shove the giant glass egg over so she can get through to the next room. It doesn’t budge at all, far heavier than she thought it would be. 

“Hey guys,” she calls out. “There’s another door here, but it’s behind this egg thing. Can you help me move it?” 

Sora bounds over first, and peers at the glass egg while they wait for Riku to find somewhere to put down his latest find. The only reason Kairi isn’t afraid of these things is because Aqua told them that all the dangerous ones should be stored in the attic, not the basement. That hardly makes it _completely_ safe, but Kairi is sure that handling most things should be fine. 

Riku comes over and positions himself so he’s facing the door, with Kairi taking up a space beside him. 

“What are we supposed to grab?” Sora asks, poking at the glass of the egg. Kairi puts a hand on one of the rings, which doesn’t move, and then pulls at it a little. Despite hovering in the air, it doesn’t budge. That means that it should be connected to the main glass pillar, right?

“Try the rings?” she suggests, and Sora puts his hands on one. Kairi grabs a second ring, thinking that they shouldn’t all be pulling on the same ring. Riku tries to pull on the egg itself, but after a second, he admits defeat and places both his hands on the third ring. Kairi looks away from the pulsating heart at the centre of the egg, trying to convince herself that it’s just her imagination that it’s brighter all of a sudden. 

“Okay, on three,” Sora says. “Push towards Riku. One, two–”

Before Sora can say _three_ , a blinding light explodes from the egg. Kairi shouts, throwing her arms up to cover her face as the light overtakes them all. Suddenly her legs give out from under her and she tumbles to the floor, somehow managing to avoid hitting her head on anything as she goes down.

 _Ugh_. Her head is ringing. Aqua is meant to be a Master – couldn’t she have come up with something else that the three of them could help with, that _wouldn’t_ explode? With her eyes kept tightly shut, Kairi rolls over and pushes herself to her hands and knees, but something is just – _wrong_ about the movement, and she ends up faceplanting the floor. When she groans, she hears someone – Sora? – echo her from somewhere close, but it’s strangely distorted, like she’s hearing it underwater.

“Riku? Kairi?” Riku says.

“Riku?” Kairi asks, confused. Why is he asking about himself? Then she coughs, because something is wrong with her voice, even though her throat feels fine. What if the egg did something to her hearing? But Riku had sounded fine. She rubs at her eyes to clear a few tears from them – some dirt must have gotten blown up into her face when she fell down.

“Sora, Kairi, are you okay?” she hears from someone else – a girl? The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but she can’t place it. Besides, who else would be in this basement besides the three of them? Aqua, Vanitas, and Terra are the only other people on the world at the moment. A sudden image of them releasing some sort of magical creature unwittingly rises in her mind. Oh man, why did Sora have to tell them about the real genie in a bottle that he had come across in his travels…

She blinks open her eyes gingerly, but the piercing light seems to have dissipated. She looks at the glass egg that they had all been touching, but it’s different now – the pulsating gem in the heart of the glass has gone grey and silent. The rings around the egg are almost drooping, all the power gone out of them.

Then Kairi notices three pressing things, in approximately this order: 

She is not on the same side of the glass egg that she was when she was holding it, as she’s facing the door now instead of to the side of it. 

She can see _someone who looks exactly like her_ , exactly where Kairi should have been, who is sitting up and blinking rapidly. 

She is wearing Sora’s shoes. And Sora’s pants. And his shirt, and his gloves.

“ _Um_ ,” she starts, dismay crashing over her. Oh no. Her afternoon has just been instantly and completely ruined. She really should have expected that going into the magical basement wouldn’t be as easy as Aqua had said it would be.

“Kairi?” Riku says, staring at Kairi’s body. Then he turns and his eyes almost bug out as he does a double take, the expression so out of place on Riku that she doesn’t know how to react. “ _Me?!_ ” 

“Fuck,” Kairi says, because she really can’t think of anything else that can quite sum up the situation on such short notice. 

“Sora!” says the fake-Kairi. But if Kairi is currently Sora, and Sora is currently Riku, then that must be Riku-as-Kairi, and oh geez this is already doing her head in. A giggle makes it way up her throat, and she clamps a hand down over her mouth to keep it in. _Not_ appropriate.

“Riku?” she asks, staring at herself – her _body_ – trying to get her feet under her once more. Now that she knows that things will feel a bit off, she’s much more successful. It almost feels like standing when she’s gone from respectfully tipsy to moderately drunk. Her and Sora aren’t that different anyway, about the same height and weight, but they must stand differently because her legs and back aren’t quite doing what they’re supposed to be.

Sora-as-Riku tries to stand, and immediately hits his head on an overhanging lamp or whatever magical item it really is. It just looks like a lamp to her. Riku-as-Kairi trips over his feet – Kairi’s feet? Are they still her feet even if she’s not the one piloting the body at the moment? – and falls to land in an inelegant, groaning, puddle on the ground. 

“Okay,” Kairi says, and her voice is weird because it’s _Sora’s voice._ “Okay. First of all, Aqua was so very wrong about there not being anything down here that was dangerous.” 

“You _think?_ ” Riku asks, and hearing her own voice is _never_ going to get any less weird. 

“Kairi? Riku?” Sora says gingerly, rubbing his head and peering at the two of them. “Wait… Riku, you’re Kairi now? And Kairi is me?” 

“And you’re me,” Riku grumbles. He very slowly stands, holding his hands out for balance like he’s standing on something very narrow, despite the whole floor being right there. “Okay. Let’s all try to touch the magical body swapping device again, and see if that gets us back to normal.” 

Kairi very deliberately places her feet as she walks back over to the glass egg. Even as she lays her hands on it, the sinking feeling in her stomach tells her that it’s not going to work. The powerful magic at the centre of the egg has been expended, and when Sora and Riku touch it and nothing happens, she’s far from surprised. 

“Okay,” Riku says. “Plan B. We get out of here and tell Aqua and hope that she knows something about how to fix this.” 

Sora nods vigorously. It looks so strange on Riku that Kairi almost starts laughing. “ _Great_ idea, Kairi.”

“I’m Riku!” 

* * *

Unfortunately, Aqua does _not_ know anything about the evil glass egg. They don’t ask Vanitas, mostly because he hears out their explanation, tells them that only the three of them could do something this idiotic, and retreats to the back of the library.

Aqua hmms a lot as they explain it to her. She hmms even more when they lead her back to the basement and show her the egg. It is now infuriatingly light to move, and Aqua picks it up with one hand to take it back to the library to study further. She hmms again when Kairi despairingly asks her what they can do to help. 

“You can start reading,” she says, gesturing around to the piles of books surrounding them. “That’s what I’ll do, after I do some more magical tests on the glass. But besides that, I’m sorry Kairi. I don’t know of anything you can immediately do to help.” 

_That_ hadn’t gone down well with anyone. Riku had suggested that they regroup outside, where they can talk all they want without disturbing Master Aqua. Kairi tries not to think about it as a _retreat_ and instead agrees, since she wants to shout and Aqua is being very nice about this whole thing. Besides, you’re not supposed to shout in libraries. She’d feel bad if she did it in there.

Riku leaves Sora and Kairi behind, almost running as he leaves the library. Sora is still walking like he can’t see anything, testing the ground out in front of him before trusting his weight to it. He’s fallen another four times, three of which were up or down the stairs. 

“You okay?” Kairi asks him. 

“Riku is so tall,” Sora complains. “I always thought I wanted to be tall, but I take that back! I’m the perfect height. Kairi, you’re lucky you get to be me.” 

She holds her hands out – Sora’s hands. She’s still wearing his gloves, which is both weird and not weird – Sora’s body must be used to it, because wearing them feels normal, but when she looks down, she’s not used to seeing her hands covered in black like this. 

“Hey Sora,” she says suddenly. “Do you think our Keyblades–”

His eyes go wide, and he holds up his hand. The Kingdom Key flashes to life in his palm and Kairi lets out a shuddering breath. Destiny’s Embrace hums as she calls it to her. They look at each other and Kairi holds her Keyblade up to see how it refracts in the light. It’s unchanged, the same sort of gleaming gold that it had been the first time she had ever held it.

“I feel like mine is a little short for this body,” Sora chuckles awkwardly. “Oh man, Kairi, Riku’s Keyblade is gonna be _way_ too big for you!” 

Kairi agrees – sometimes when she looks at Braveheart, she thinks that it’s as tall as she is. While well suited to Riku’s height, it’ll be quite unwieldy for him to use right now. 

Riku is leaning on the wall in the courtyard outside. The courtyard almost sparkles with how new it is. Kairi was here to lay the last few bricks alongside the people who live here, Ventus grinning and nudging Vanitas with an elbow, Terra with a proud look in his eye, Master Aqua standing over them all and lowering the last stone into place with her magic, only concentration visible on her face. 

Riku turns his head to see them, and his eyes widen as he sees them carrying their normal Keyblades. He lifts a hand and Braveheart appears, looking as ridiculous as Kairi thought it would. Riku peers down at it, clearly coming to the same conclusion. 

Sora starts laughing, and after a second, Kairi does too. It’s strange, hearing Riku’s laugh so freely, which she doesn’t want to think about. _When we get back to normal, I’ll find a way to get him to laugh like this_ , she promises herself.

“Not sure we want to get into any fights like this,” Sora sniggers. 

“You can barely _walk_ ,” Riku points out waspishly. “I bet I could still fight better than you.” 

Sora puffs his chest out, and Kairi puts a hand on his arm because she knows that look. “We really don’t need to try and stumble about with our Keyblades hurting ourselves.” 

Sora rubs the back of his neck. “Ha… maybe.” 

They look at each other. “This is so stupid,” Kairi says suddenly. “Ugh! How come all this weird shit always happens to you Sora?”

“Me?” Sora asks.

“You’re always at the centre of these things,” Kairi says. “Riku and I are just collateral.”

“Kairi,” Riku chides. “It’s not Sora’s fault. You’re the one who wanted to move the device.”

“Yeah, Kairi,” Sora pouts. “That means it’s your fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault,” Riku disputes him. “It’s an accident. Come on, guys. Let’s be mature about this.”

Kairi sighs. “Yeah, yeah, alright. Sorry, Sora.”

“It’s okay,” Sora says. “It’s kinda frustrating.”

“A lot frustrating,” Riku agrees. “But there’s nothing really going on at the moment, and Aqua is going to help us find a way to get us back in our normal bodies.”

“She better,” Sora says. “It was her crazy magical thingy that got us stuck like this!”

“We need to be careful,” Kairi says. “To keep each other’s bodies safe, yeah?”

“I’ll stop tripping eventually,” Sora says. “…Right?”

“You should, when you get used to it,” Riku reassures him.

Kairi rolls her head back to look up the sky. The thread of frustration has made its way out of her, but there’s still an uneasiness in her stomach. She reaches up to touch her necklace, only to realise that she’s not wearing it anymore.

“Riku,” she says. “Can I have my necklace?”

“Hm?” His hand comes up to touch the base of his throat, where her necklace is sitting. “Oh, sure.” He unclasps it and hands it over, and Kairi tries not to let on how much holding it reassures her. Something as small as this shouldn’t be so comforting, not after everything that they’ve all gone through. Still, it’s been by her side for her whole life, and having that touch of familiarity helps. She puts it on, and the disquiet within her fades somewhat, though it still feels like she’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with her.

“Sora, you need to not eat any eggs,” Kairi suddenly says. “Riku is allergic, remember?” 

“Aw man,” Sora says. “But I love eggs!” 

“Hopefully we shouldn’t be stuck like this for too long,” Riku says hopefully. “Wait a second… does this mean I _can_ eat eggs now?” 

The three of them stare at each other, and then Sora nearly trips over his feet again as they all whirl back towards the castle. Kairi catches him as he stumbles, and Sora shifts so that they’re holding hands. It’s definitely Riku’s hand that she’s feeling, but Sora’s hand doesn’t fit quite in it the same as she’s used to. She’s left feeling slightly awkward as they all make their way back inside, towards the kitchens that Sora has already taken over several times prior, feeling gangly and out of place in a body that isn’t hers. 

* * *

Kairi kicks her feet against the kitchen counter as she watches Riku take his first bite of eggs. Sora is watching just as intently from his other side. 

“Can you guys stop staring?” Riku asks. 

“How is it?” Sora asks. “It looks good. It smells good.” 

The timer on the counter goes off, and Sora bounces over to take the poached eggs that he’s making out of the pot. He takes that pot off the heat and starts another up, putting two eggs inside it with their shells still on, planning on making boiled eggs with those. Kairi steals Riku’s fork and takes a bite of Sora’s cooking, to give herself a benchmark of whether these are good eggs or not. 

“Yum,” she hums. “Your cooking is getting even better, Sora!” 

“Thanks!” he says cheerfully. “Though this is a little harder, seeing as I can’t taste anything… and Riku’s arms are a lot longer than I’m used to.” 

Riku is thoughtfully chewing on his eggs. He steals back his fork, and puts some on the toast that Kairi had contributed. 

“Try some chili sauce on your next bite,” Kairi encourages. 

“Or tomato sauce!” Sora suggests. 

“Hmm,” Riku says. 

Sora does another lap of the kitchen, putting dirty bowls in the sink, which magically start to wash themselves. He’s getting better at using Riku’s body; having to cook has made him focus, and he hasn’t tripped over his own feet, or anything else, since they all made it to the kitchen. 

Kairi puts one of the poached eggs on Riku’s plate, and puts chili sauce onto her egg. Riku reaches for the tomato sauce and Kairi gives him a look to let him know that he’s disappointed her. 

“I could make you a cake, Riku!” Sora says cheerfully. “Not that all the normal food that I make for you isn’t good and all, _but_ there’s this one meringue that you might like which I can’t really make without eggs, and Kairi adores it, and we could share with the others too! You know, to thank Aqua for helping us out, even though we were the ones who were supposed to be helping her out, but then this all happened…” 

“I’ll go and see if I can find anything in the library later,” Riku says grimly. “It’ll be better if we have a few people searching. When Terra and Ventus get back, I’ll ask if they know anything.” 

“I’ll come and help you in the library,” Kairi says, bracing herself. “I can look through the books that aren’t locked to Masters, right?” 

Riku nods distractedly, pushing his eggs around his plate. “Aqua will know which ones might be helpful and that you can look at.” 

“And I’ll make sure everyone is fed,” Sora says cheerfully. It’s still strange to see Riku’s face in such a wide smile. She takes a big bite of her eggs, as if that will stop her thinking about such things. She needs to plot with Sora, as to how they can make Riku smile like that all the time. 

“So, Riku,” Sora says, coming over to lean against the counter at Riku’s side, peering at him. “How are your eggs?” 

There’s a long pause. “Hmm,” Riku says unhelpfully. 

Kairi stares at him, trying to stop the incredulous expression she can feel starting to creep across her face. “Riku. Don’t tell me…” 

Sora looks devastated. “You don’t like my cooking?” 

“Your cooking is great!” Riku protests immediately. “I like everything that you normally cook for me.” 

“But not my eggs,” Sora says, despondent. “It’s hard to crack those with my normal hands! Without trying to do it when my arms and my fingers are too long and don’t go exactly where they should go!” 

“I like your eggs,” Kairi tries to placate him, but Sora shakes his head. 

“This was my one chance to show Riku what he’s been missing out on, and I can’t even live up to it.” 

Riku huffs out a breath, a fond expression coming over his face. Kairi leans in a little bit, studying how her lip moves as Riku bites it slightly, the slant of her eyebrows as Riku looks at Sora. Really, how many chances is she ever going to get to look at her own face like this?

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Riku says. “If I really liked it, then when I went back to my body I would be sad, because I could never eat eggs again.” 

Sora perks up. “Oh, you’re right! If you loved it, then you’d be inconsolable when we switch back, because my cooking is so good. You’d dream of eggs for the rest of your life! It’s better this way.” 

They all laugh. Kairi finds Riku’s hand under the table and he threads his fingers with hers. Even when their fingers don’t match up like she’s used to, it’s still him. 

“Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,” Sora muses. 

“Speak for yourself,” Riku grumbles. “I need to use the bathroom.” 

Kairi puts her hands over her face as Sora splutters. “Augh! Ah!” 

“Surely you can’t be this dense.” 

“Hey! At least you’ve got the same parts to work with.” Kairi peeks out to see Sora tugging at Riku’s arm awkwardly. “I have to learn – a new alphabet! Or something!” 

Kairi stares at Sora, who has the grace to blush slightly. 

“No, you’re right,” Riku says. “You’re in the same boat, huh Kairi.” He tugs at her sleeve – at Sora’s jacket. “We should talk about this.” 

“Look on the bright side,” Kairi says. “This would be so much more awkward if we weren’t dating. Imagine if it had been Ventus, Terra, and Aqua who had found it.” 

“Aren’t Terra and Aqua already dating?” Sora asks, tilting his head to the side. 

“No?” Kairi says, looking at Sora. “I didn’t think so? Did they say anything?” 

“Well… no,” Sora admits. “They’re really close, so I thought…” 

“I thought Aqua liked girls,” Riku admits.

“ _What?_ Aw man, when did she tell you that?”

Riku turns his face away slightly, and Kairi leans over to see if he’s blushing. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t tell her I said anything.”

“This is a Master thing, isn’t it,” Sora says desolately.

“ _Anyway_ , we’re getting off track,” Riku interrupts. “So, about bathroom breaks…” 

“Got any tips, Kairi?” Sora asks hopefully. 

Kairi takes a deep breath. They’ve been through stranger and more tense circumstances than this. They’re all adults. They can deal with a little body switching on the side. 

Or at least that’s what she tries to tell herself as she watches her boyfriends argue over who gets to go first. 

* * *

Kairi stretches her arms out over her head, trying to think. All three of them had gone to ask Aqua what they can do to help after the egg and bathroom fiasco had wrapped up. Aqua had set Riku to going through some of the dustiest looking books Kairi had ever seen. Sora had been sent to play with the evil glass egg, because apparently Kairi’s inherent light magic might mess with it. While they’d been there, Kairi had gotten a text from Ventus – on Sora’s phone, which her fingerprint had unlocked, which was super weird, so she supposes it fits in with the rest of this afternoon – so she had come outside to meet him and brief him about the situation. 

She only has to wait for another few minutes (which she uses to take some interesting selfies with Sora’s face) before she hears the distinct pop that accompanies someone entering the worldspace. Ventus shoots out of a portal, riding his Keyblade with his armour on, and executes a sharp turn to swivel on the spot and land in the middle of the courtyard with a quick flip.

“Sora! Hey!” 

He disengages his armour, which leaves Kairi blinking rapidly from the burst of light. Ventus jogs to her side, and makes a big show of looking around to make sure that no one else is here to overhear them. 

“Okay, so Aqua is going to rope us into some project as soon as we walk inside, and then your boyfriend and girlfriend are going to be there, so–”

“Ven,” Kairi tries to say. 

“–before we go in, we should talk about you know, the secret–”

“ _Ven!”_ Kairi says with more enthusiasm. 

Ven looks around wildly. “But I can’t see anyone!” 

“I’m not Sora,” she tells him. “I’m Kairi.” 

Ven looks at her for a long second, eyes narrowed slightly. “...Kairi,” he says doubtfully.

“Yeah. We were trying to help out Aqua by finding some stuff in the basement for her, but then all three of us touched this weird magic thing, and then we switched bodies.” At Ventus’s continuing disbelieving look, she holds her hand out and summons her Keyblade. “See! I’m Kairi!” 

“Woah!” Ventus says, taking half a step back. “Seriously?” 

“Yes, seriously.” 

Ventus leans in, studying her face closely. “You don’t look like Kairi.” 

“I literally just said that we switched bodies.” 

“Yeah, but there’s more to who a person is than just their body,” Ventus points out. “Heh. I should know that better than anyone. Roxas and Xion say hi, by the way.” 

Kairi crosses her arms. “I’m glad they’re doing okay. And even though I’m the one piloting Sora’s body right now, that doesn’t mean that his face would change.” 

“Yeah, but Sora would never stand like that,” Ventus says, pointing at her stance. “And he wouldn’t make that expression, either.” He thinks for a moment, then brightens. “So if you’re Sora, then Sora is Riku?” 

“Yeah,” Kairi confirms, wondering what he’s getting at. 

Ventus rubs his hands together. “Oh ho ho…” 

“Ven?” Kairi asks, alarmed. 

He points towards the castle, a grin starting to overtake his face. “They’re in there, huh? Let’s go!” 

* * *

Riku’s face is stony. Sora and Ventus are laughing. In the background, Kairi hears something that sounds like Aqua’s hand meeting Aqua’s face. A book falls to the ground from the upper level of the library, and when she peers up, Vanitas is poking his head over the railing, staring down at them all. 

“Look at you!” Ventus cheers, giggles overtaking him again. Like it’s infectious, Sora immediately begins laughing harder as well. Kairi exchanges a look with Riku, who is starting to appear like he’s thinking about dark and deserted places that he can shove the two of them into. 

“Do you mind?” Riku asks. “We’re trying to do some actual work here.” 

“As soon as I realised,” Ventus chuckles. “I had to see it! Riku’s face, but Sora’s expressions! The effect is priceless!” 

Kairi is pretty sure that she’s never worn the glower that Riku is sporting right now. Maybe she should try it out. After all, it’s making the hair on the back of her neck stand up, so it should do the same for other people as well, right? 

“Ven,” Kairi tries to say. “We really should go. If my light magic is enough to disturb the body swapping magical trap, yours probably is too. And if Sora’s playing around with it, that’s already way too much of a danger to put anyone else at risk for no reason.” 

That doesn’t get through to him, until a voice reaches them. “Ven,” Aqua says from behind her stack of books. “Make yourself useful and find somewhere for the three of them to stay the night. I don’t want any of you going off-world until we’ve figured this out. Sometimes curses are tied to particular worlds, and we really don’t want to make this permanent by accident.” 

That finally settles them. Ventus salutes, even though Kairi is pretty sure that Aqua can’t see any of them from behind her tower of books. “Sure! Will do, Master Aqua.” He bounds out of the library with more energy than even Sora seems to emit. Kairi stares after him, a wrinkle between her brows. 

“I’ll go help,” Kairi says, and to her surprise Sora bounds over to her side. 

“Heh, me too,” he says. “I’m not getting anywhere with the magic glass pillar of body swapping doom. At least this way I can help with something productive.” 

“And not inflict your pent-up energy on us,” Aqua says wryly. Sora gives a little huff of agreeance. Kairi waves to Riku, and he lifts a hand in response, even though he doesn’t look at either of them. 

Ventus has already raced ahead, to the point that following him is just an excuse to be up here, wandering around the higher levels of the castle. She looks out a window that they pass, trying to see the back courtyard of the castle.

“Have you ever been up here before?” Sora asks her. 

“No,” Kairi says. “I’ve only been to the basement and the main living areas. It’s not like there’s a reason for me to come up here.” 

“Hm,” Sora hums. “Me and Riku had a room here, for a while, when Aqua was insisting on,” he wrinkles his nose. “ _Formal education._ Ugh.” 

Right. It had been just after she and Riku had come back with Sora. Kairi had spent three weeks recovering under Merlin and Aerith’s care, and Riku and Sora had come here, to be tutored by Aqua. 

“I’m sure that Aqua will teach you if you ask her,” Sora hints. 

“We’re already here, aren’t we?” Kairi asks, trying not to let her anger get the better of her. “If she wanted to teach me, she should offer. I shouldn’t have to ask. That’s her responsibility as a Master.” 

“She doesn’t have to teach you if you don’t want her to,” Sora mutters. “After all, Riku knows everything now, and he’s a Master. You could ask him.” 

That hadn’t occurred to her. She smiles gratefully up at Sora. “Yeah. You’re right.” 

Sora’s fond expression is different to Riku’s fond expression, and it looks out of place on Riku’s face. “You should at least speak to Aqua.” 

“Hmpf,” Kairi says. “She should apologise to me first.” 

Sora looks at her out of the side of his eyes. “Ahuh.” 

Kairi grits her teeth. “It’s not my fault that I have her Keyblade. She should be mad at Riku! He’s the one who went into Xemnas’s stupid Chamber of Repose and stole the Keyblade there to give it to me. But it’s _mine_ now! She has her Master’s Keyblade. And without this one, I…” 

She can feel the weight of Destiny’s Embrace deep in her heart. She’s grown used to it there over the last few years – she can’t remember what it’s like to live without it. She doesn’t want to know what it would be like to live without it – a cold spot? A sieve in her heart? An empty place, that she would never be able to fill again? 

“She should have at least asked you about it instead of demanding it back,” Sora says, clearly uncomfortable. 

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” Kairi says, tension tight in her jaw. “But she should realise that it’s best just to let things be as they are now. She doesn’t need her old Keyblade back.” 

“You get touchy when you’re just thinking about losing your Keyblade,” Sora says gently. “She _has_ lost hers, and to someone else too. It must be hard for her.” 

Kairi lets out an explosive sigh. “I know, I know. I said it was hard for everyone. It’s just that–”

“Hey guys!” 

Kairi shuts her mouth as Ventus wheels around the corner. There’s something about – his mouth, or maybe the look in his eyes, that lets her know that he’d caught the end of their discussion. 

“Hey Ven,” Sora says easily. “We were completely lost, so I’m glad you found us.” 

“We weren’t _completely_ lost,” Kairi splutters. They were just… having a nice walk! And talking about things! Those things have nothing to do with their location, but since they weren’t aiming for anywhere, that means there’s no possibility of them getting lost at all.

“Either way,” Ventus says, still smiling, eyes still empty. “Come on, I’ll show you to your rooms.” 

* * *

The rooms that Ventus has picked out are clearly only meant to hold one person in each, but they’re all next to each other, so Kairi has a silent conversation with Sora over Ventus’s chattering head where they agree that they can just all crash in the biggest room tonight. 

“And down the hall is where Terra’s room is, and mine is right here!” He gestures to the room next to the one which is supposedly Sora’s. He swivels back to face them, so light on his feet that it looks like he weighs nothing at all. “Do you guys know the way back to the library?” 

“Not really,” Sora admits, tucking his hands behind his neck. Ventus makes a face at it. 

“It’s super weird to see Riku doing your normal things.” He peers up at Sora. “And you’re so much taller than me now! Hey, are you taller than Terra?” 

“I don’t think so,” Sora says. “But there’s only one way to find out.” 

The two boys stare at each other before taking off. Kairi mumbles something she wouldn’t repeat in polite company as she follows them. It’s still not exactly easy to be running around in Sora’s body – Sora seems like he’s grown more used to it, but that’s probably because he’s already tripped like fifty times. He’s felt out the edges forcefully, while Kairi would prefer to keep herself in one piece if possible. When they switch back, Riku is going to have a lot of bruises to complain about.

The two boys make it down to the receiving hall before her, but it’s easy to follow their loud voices outside and watch as Ventus jumps off the edge of the walkway, taking to the air to glide to the other side of the canyon. Sora puts his hands up and Kairi is almost overtaken by dizziness as panic flashes through her, as hot and sudden as a firecracker. 

“ _WAIT!_ ” she yells as loudly as she can. Sora stops, turning his head to look at her. 

“Kairi?” he calls. “What’s wrong?” 

She jogs to his side. “Sora, Riku can’t glide. Sure, you can use your Keyblade, but how about you try and test your gliding skills first before throwing yourself out over a chasm?” 

Sora looks down as if noticing the immense drop for the first time. “Oh.” 

She puts her hands on her hips and stares. 

“Well, now I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it at all,” he says, clearly peeved. “Gliding is about believing, you know.” 

“Then go ahead and do it. Over the ground,” she gestures. 

Sora screws up his face in concentration, but when he jumps, it doesn’t turn into a glide. He lands back down with a thump, looking disappointed. 

“Try to use Riku’s doubleflight,” Kairi suggests. She’s mildly jealous of the ability, and if _Sora_ gets to use it too – not fair. 

Sora tilts his head for a second, and then jumps. Sure enough, a smaller platform appears below him, and he jumps again, soaring high into the air. She hears him whoop, before he falls to the ground, landing in a smooth roll. 

“Okay, maybe you were right,” Sora admits. “But hey, this means you can glide!” 

She looks over the cliff, but decides to take her own advice. “How do you do it?” she asks, facing down the runway of the bridge nervously. 

He slaps her on the back once, encouraging. “I told you – you just gotta believe. You can do it, Kairi!” 

She takes a few steps back in preparation, bouncing once on the spot. She’s seen Sora glide countless times before – he loves to do it whenever possible, even when there’s no reason at all to take to the skies. She closes her eyes. Sora can do it. She’s seen him. She can do it. There’s no reason that she shouldn’t be able to inherit his talent from his body. As long as she doesn’t think about it too deeply, it even makes sense. 

The first step is to jump, but she hasn’t even tried that in Sora’s body yet. She takes a deep breath and leaps, this body already knowing what to do more than she’s directing it. It curls up into a ball to gain the maximum lift, and she tries to curl her hands like she remembers seeing, tries to catch the wind under her, and promptly falls on her ass. 

“Ha!” Sora laughs. He bends down and she takes his hand to help her up, glaring at him the whole time. “Hey, don’t look at me like that,” he pouts. “I can doubleflight, so you must be able to glide!” 

“Maybe I just don’t know how to do it,” Kairi slumps. 

“You’ve gotta try a few times,” Sora encourages her. “I bet you’ll get it eventually. All you gotta do is hold the belief in your heart you know–”

A crash from the forest interrupts him.

Kairi turns to see Ventus sprinting out from the cover of the trees on the far side of the mountain. If he continues on the path he’s on, he’ll end up running beneath the bridge. Terra bursts out of the foliage a second later, completely silent compared to Ventus’s screeching. 

“ _Ahghghghhhhaahhh! Aqua, Vanitas, help!”_

Following them closely, a Heartless leaps from the trees and into the daylight. Kairi goggles at it – it has to be the biggest Heartless that she’s ever seen, and it’s running on four paws, quick and lithe and agile as it jumps around a boulder that Terra summons to try and throw at it. A blue mane streams from the back of its head down to its tail, which flickers around like a dancing spark in the breeze. It has two curving horns and wicked looking teeth to go with its long, sharp claws.

“Up here!” Sora yells at them, waving his arms. 

“I don’t think they’re listening,” Kairi says. Her eyes race forwards, trying to see where they’re headed. Terra doesn’t strike her as one to run, especially if he has Ventus at his side. They must be aiming towards something. 

She sees it as Ventus passes below her on the path that’s too far down to jump to. There’s a large clearing just through the trees there, with the cliff wall bordering it on two sides, and empty space and the river far below that on the third side. They wouldn’t be able to escape the Heartless, but the Heartless also won’t be able to escape them. 

“Sora!” she exclaims, pointing towards the clearing. Sora’s eyes go narrow and squinty. 

“We should help,” he says seriously. 

She grabs his shoulder. “Remember what we said about not fighting! We’re not used to being in these bodies, and we don’t really know what they can do. We can probably fire down some spells from above, but it wouldn’t be a great idea to get involved. We would get in their way, and they don’t need to split their concentration between us.” 

Sora sets his jaw, and for a moment he looks so much like Riku that Kairi looks down at her hands to see if they’ve been switched back to normal. 

“We have to help,” he says. “We’ll stay out of the way, but we need to help.” 

Kairi looks around. “We might be able to get closer – and then shoot some magic down at it,” she suggests. “After all, it’s a big enough of a target.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Sora says, and starts jogging. Kairi goes after him, only hesitating for a second before she picks up her pace too. Her feet are starting to feel – well, not normal, but she’s getting used to it. As long as it’s flat ground, they’ll probably both be fine. 

Of course, the first thing that Sora does as soon as he reaches the other side of the bridge is jump into the forest. Kairi frowns as she follows him, placing her feet as carefully as she can. Sora’s body feels the burn of the movement differently than hers – weird. 

Sora is already there when she comes out of the trees to stand at the top of the cliff. He shoots a fireball down at the Heartless, which only seems to vaguely annoy it for a second until it goes back to trying to bite Ventus’s head off. Kairi summons her own Keyblade and calls the chill of frost to it, her blizzard spell careening downwards. It explodes on the back of the Heartless, making it roar. 

Sora tries a water spell, and that has much the same effect. Kairi shoots her own fireball down, but it rolls off just like Sora’s had. Next she reaches deep into her heart, ignoring Sora as he yells and casts his magic, and sends a pearl of light down to attack. There’s something different about the spell, but she can’t quite put her finger on with the Heartless jumping around and attacking Ventus and Terra. It seems to do the trick anyway, making the Heartless stop and give out an earth-shaking roar. 

A flash of movement near the castle draws her attention, in time to see Vanitas throw himself off the bridge and down onto the Heartless in a rush of darkness. He falls into step with Ventus, and Kairi sees the moment their hearts connect and they snap into complete sync, pieces of a puzzle joined together. Their Keyblades lash out around them in a whirlwind of attacks, a flurry that distracts and damages in equal measure. Terra uses his newfound space to change his Keyblade into a cannon and shoot it at the Heartless, and Kairi casts another few blizzards before pausing, her magic needing a second to recover. 

“Do you think that’ll do it?” Sora asks hopefully. Ventus and Vanitas are careening around the small area, somehow managing to dodge Terra and yet hit the Heartless with every swoop of their joint movements. Kairi grits her teeth as she sends another pearl of light towards them. Ventus catches it and adds his own power, and it explodes upon reaching the Heartless. 

The Heartless lets out a protesting roar, but it slowly shimmers and fades out of existence. Kairi watches as the heart that it had captured floats towards the sky, finally free to continue its journey towards Kingdom Hearts. Kairi lets out a long breath. 

“Whew. At least that’s over.” 

She turns to head back to the courtyard, but Sora doesn’t move. He’s still looking pensively down at the ring, to where Ventus is cajoling Vanitas into a hi five, and where Terra is standing still with one hand on his hip, clearly taking a moment to recover. 

“Sora?” 

“Hm?” he turns to her. “C’mon Kairi, lets meet up with them.” 

There must be a hidden path somewhere that she doesn’t know about, because when they step out of the forest, Terra, Ventus and Vanitas are already making their way across the bridge that leads to the castle. Sora runs over to them, while Kairi keeps walking. There’s something strange sitting in her chest that she doesn’t want to name – no need to agitate it if she doesn’t need to. 

“Hey guys!” Sora calls. 

“Hey Riku,” Terra says. “Thanks for helping out.” 

“Oh yeah, you don’t know yet,” Sora says. “I’m Sora! I’m just in Riku’s body at the moment.” 

Terra stares at him. 

“It’s true, we’re trying to figure out how to swap them all back,” Ventus says. Terra looks over Sora’s shoulder to Kairi. 

“Riku?” he asks hesitantly, but Kairi shakes her head. 

“It’s Kairi! Sora is in my body,” she explains. 

“Right,” Terra says absently. “Wait, how did this happen?” 

They explain everything, again. The whole time, Terra’s expression becomes more and more worried. 

“You look constipated,” Vanitas tells him. 

“Vanitas!” Ventus protests. 

“What? It’s true,” Vanitas snorts. “I don’t hear a thank you for saving your ass.” 

Ventus pouts. “Thanks, Vani.” 

Vanitas scowls at him. “I wasn’t asking _you_.” 

“Thank you,” Terra says absently. He’s looking at Sora, who has retreated a few steps and is looking over the edge of the bridge again. “I should go and ask Aqua if there’s anything I can do to help.” 

“We’re going through the books,” Vanitas says grumpily. “You don’t like being in the library, anyway. Just go and do whatever it is you fill your afternoons with.” 

Vanitas flounces off, and Ventus runs after him, trying to get him to slow down, to wait up. Kairi sighs. 

“You’re really Kairi?” Terra asks her. 

“My Keyblade didn’t convince you?” Kairi lifts her eyebrows. 

“I guess what I’m really trying to ask is if that’s really Sora,” Terra says quietly. “He feels…” 

Alarm prickles along her spine. “He feels like what?” 

Terra is silent for several seconds, which does nothing to reassure her. “He still feels like Riku,” Terra tells her. “I can feel the darkness coiled in him. Like calls to like,” he explains with a grimace. 

She looks at Sora. Sure, he hasn’t been acting exactly normal, but… 

“You too,” Terra says, chillingly. She looks at him with wide eyes. “I can still feel the wisps of darkness that are in Sora’s heart. Though maybe they’re not in his heart after all,” he says thoughtfully. 

“What do you mean?” she presses. “Vanitas didn’t say anything.”

Terra shrugs. “Vanitas is a creature of the heart. To him, you’re probably all the same as before. I’m good at… feeling the darkness, now. Just like Riku can. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.” He frowns. “Maybe it’s because he got switched as well.”

“So what? Riku’s body is still… like how he normally is?” 

“Well, I don’t know what happened to you to switch you guys,” Terra says. “And while most darkness rests within the heart, it corrupts the body as well. You and Ven are the odd ones, you know.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “If something happens, or something feels strange… please tell me. We don’t need this to be a problem too.” 

She thinks of the strange fluttery feeling in her chest, and the squeeze of her gut when she had seen the Heartless. That was just… her being nervous… right? 

“I don’t know,” Kairi admits. “If anything happens,” she looks at Sora. “To either of us. I’ll let you know. And I’ll ask Riku if he can still tell that there’s darkness in his body.” She pauses. “Do you think that it might different because it’s his darkness? He wouldn’t have to feel that out normally, right?” 

“You’d be surprised,” Terra says. He’s taking this awfully well, she thinks. “Go and ask him. I’m going to ask Aqua if there’s anything I can do, even though Vanitas probably wouldn’t lie about something like this.” 

“You think?” 

Terra hums under his breath. “He likes Sora. And you, I think. And he’s friends with Riku. Even if he thinks this is all funny, he knows that you guys don’t want to be like this forever.” Terra’s expression darkens. “We both know what it’s like to have something done to our bodies without our consent.” 

“Terra…” 

He smiles at her, but it’s a small thing. “Come on. We should all go back in.” 

“Sora!” she calls. “We’re going back to the library.” 

He doesn’t reply for a second, and some nameless thing half blocks the back of her throat. She doesn’t want this to get worse – it’s not too bad at the moment. Even using the bathroom had been more weird than anything. She doesn’t want it to _get_ bad. If only they can restore everything back to normal before something terrible happens. 

“Sora,” she says again, and he turns to face her. 

“You should try gliding again,” he says, and she lets out a silent breath. 

“Maybe on the way back,” she suggests. “You wanna come and give me pointers?” 

He grins, giving her a thumbs up. “Sure!” 

It’s fine, she tells herself, and hopes that she’s not lying. 

* * *

Aqua, Riku, and Vanitas have found nothing in the library. It’s not surprising, even though Kairi wants to shake something until it magically fixes the whole situation. Terra goes to thoughtfully poke the evil egg, and Kairi leaves before she starts tearing her hair out. She doesn’t think Sora would appreciate her efforts. 

So instead they’re standing in the grand hall. Kairi doubtfully looks over the side of the balcony down to the next floor, where Sora is waving. 

“Come on! You can do it!” 

“It didn’t work the first seven times!” she yells back. 

“Well maybe it will work the eighth!” 

Having nothing else do to, she climbs up on the railing again, and concentrates as she slowly lets herself fall over the edge. She does her usual flip in midair to right herself, and then she’s trying to feel the magic inside her, to buffet her fall, but there’s nothing. 

Sora catches her with an aero and she sits on the floor. 

“How did you manage to do the doubleflight?” Kairi asks. 

“Um,” Sora says. “I don’t know. I just thought about how Riku jumps again in the air because he makes that magic stepping stone to leap off of, and then the magic stepping stone was there!” 

That’s not very helpful. She narrows her eyes at him. “And you’re really sure that you don’t do anything besides ‘believing’ when you glide.” 

Sora nods seriously at her. Kairi puts her head in her hands. 

“Do you think you could do Riku’s dark dodge as well?” 

Sora pauses. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I mean… I guess not?” 

“How come?” 

“Well, Riku pulls on the darkness inside him to do that, doesn’t he?” Sora asks, waving his hand about. “I don’t exactly have the same relationship with my darkness that he has. Riku _controls_ his, I just,” he closes his fist on air. “Succumb to it.” 

“Sora…” Kairi says. 

He shrugs. “It’s true. The way he melds his shadows is pretty unique. Still, I guess I can try.” 

He stands, and narrows his eyes at the space in front of him. Kairi hops up to her feet, uneasy and regretting suggesting it at all. She’d just wanted Sora to realise that there were parts of Riku’s abilities that he couldn’t copy, but…

Sora stretches out and walks a few steps, then starts running. He throws himself forward, and Kairi’s breath stops as she watches him trip over his feet and land in a pile on the floor. 

“Hm,” he mutters. Kairi lets the air whoosh out of her. 

“Did you really just try that?” 

“Yeah,” Sora says, rubbing his head. “Hey, you asked me to!” 

“Asked you to what?” 

Kairi turns her head to see Riku coming down the stairs, eyes slightly distant. Even like this, she can tell that he’s still thinking about whatever book he’d probably come from. It’s weird to recognise that expression on her own face. Actually, it’s still weird to be seeing her face like this. Sora is better – he’s in Riku’s body, which is odd, but she’s used to seeing Riku. 

“Hi Riku,” Sora says easily. “What’s up?” 

“Dinner,” Riku says. “Where have you guys been?” 

Kairi looks guiltily up at the balcony that she’s been jumping off for the last hour or two. 

“Practising,” Sora says. “Let’s go, I’m starving!” 

He runs ahead, and Kairi falls into step with Riku. He hasn’t been walking as fast as he normally does, and she wonders if he’s not completely steady in his new body either. 

“Find anything useful?” she asks hopefully. 

He shakes his head. “We’ve narrowed down some things that won’t help. I’m going to try and look more at the dome tomorrow.” 

“Not later tonight?”

He scowls. “I’m used to being more awake at night. The shadows always keep me company. But like this, I…” He pulls at the edge of Kairi’s skirt, and her heart skips a beat. They’ve all been too busy to think about changing clothes, and everyone here already knows who they are, but maybe Riku doesn’t want to be wearing that. _Idiot_ , she berates herself. She should have suggested that they change into something more comfortable.

“Sora and I are thinking along the same lines,” she tells him, scrambling to come up with something to distract him. “You know, Sora can use doubleflight now?” 

Riku’s face does something complicated. “What?” 

“And we’ve been trying to see if I can glide, but we haven’t figured it out yet. It makes sense – a lot of our powers come from our hearts, but a lot of this stuff has to be ingrained in our bodies too, right?” 

Riku stops, and looks up. All the ceilings of every corridor here are ridiculously tall, so she’s hardly surprised when he leaps into the air, spins in place, and executes a perfect doubleflight – an ability that Kairi doesn’t normally have. 

“Aw,” Kairi says. Now that’s just rubbing it in.

“Oof,” Riku says as he lands. “That was tougher than normal.” 

“How so?” 

He thinks about it for a second. “I’m used to doing them, normally. It’s become easy, a habit. But that one felt like I was forcing it – like I’d grown out of practise, or something.” 

“But you could still do it,” Kairi points out. “It doesn’t make sense.” 

“It does,” Riku argues. “It’s exactly like you said. A lot of our experiences are in our hearts, our minds, but the body knows them as well. Sora is just great at listening to what’s going on in his body, so he just let his muscle memory do the work for him. Except it was _my_ muscle memory doing it all for him this time. 

“Hm.” That does sound like Sora. “I guess that could be it.” 

Riku nods. He’s still walking slowly. 

“How come you’re walking so slow?” Kairi asks, because why not. 

Riku’s mouth _definitely_ pouts. Kairi is immediately obsessed with the expression. “My legs are short now.” 

She blinks. She is short, and Riku _is_ tall normally... With long legs his pace is slower than hers, because otherwise he would outpace her easily. Now that he’s stuck in her body, habit is getting the better of him. 

“This is really weird,” she finally says, because she doesn’t know how else to answer. Riku nods tightly, but his pace does speed up slightly. 

Everyone else is already at the table when they get there. Vanitas is glowering at his plate while Ventus tries to cajole him into something, and Terra is seriously cutting up a tomato while Aqua hands Sora the gravy. 

“No eggs?” Riku asks as they sit. 

“I never make anything with eggs when you come to visit,” Aqua says. Kairi surveys the three different salad types on the table. Sure enough, there’s no eggs. Though, Sora may have used most of them this morning in their attempt to enlighten Riku as to the greatness of egg-eating.

She hadn’t noticed when they were eating this morning, but food tastes slightly different in Sora’s body. Normally she adores the peach salad that Aqua makes up, but today it’s falling flat on her tongue, while the beetroot and horseradish that she normally avoids doesn’t seem so bad. She can see Sora and Riku carefully picking at their own food too, not contributing to the conversation that’s flowing around them. 

“So you guys really found nothing?” Ventus asks. “Aw, too bad. There should be something in the library though, right? I mean, that thing _was_ in the basement.” 

“Unless someone else put it there,” Vanitas points out, stealing a peach from Ventus’s plate. 

“Hey!” 

“It could have been put there by the Organisation when this place was locked down, but I doubt it,” Aqua says. “Master Eraqus has shown me some devices in the basement before, and I’m sure that I saw the heart transfer down there before.” 

“And we’re trusting your memory?” Vanitas asks doubtfully. 

“Vani,” Ventus pouts at him. 

“Just saying,” Vanitas says, waving his fork around. “Trauma’s a bitch.” 

“If Aqua says that she remembers it from before, then I’m sure she’s right,” Terra says. “Which means that there must be something in the library that explains it.” 

“Master Eraqus said that everything down there has been carefully studied for generations,” Aqua says. “Which was why he was starting to teach me about it, too. There wasn’t a lot of time for it though, and with everything else…” She takes a shaky breath, clearly to steady herself. “Obviously we couldn’t do anything more. But I believe that if we persist, we will find answers.” 

Kairi nods firmly. “Aqua’s right. And nothing dangerous has come out of this yet. There’s no need to worry yourselves to death. We’ve gone through harder trials than this. We can solve it, as long as we work together.” 

“It sounds like you’ve been infected with Sora,” Vanitas says, eyebrows drawing together. “Are we sure there’s no personality transfer as a part of this?”

“Kairi’s just channelling my energy!” Sora says cheerfully. 

It hardly does anything to make her feel better, but her short speech seems to lift the mood of everyone else at the table. Sora picks up most of the dishes to take them into the kitchen, and Riku chases after him to try and get him to put some down so he won’t drop them all. Terra and Aqua clear up the rest, Kairi helping to pile the remaining dishes into Terra’s hands, before they leave too.

Vanitas sits with one elbow on the table, trying to pick something out of his teeth. Ventus rips the tablecloth off, sending him sprawling, and then laughs as he sprints out of the door, Vanitas snarling in his general direction. 

“Not going to chase after him?” Kairi asks, lifting an eyebrow. 

“Hmf,” Vanitas grumps. “That’s just what he wants. If I want to get back at him, staying here is the easiest and the best option.” 

“Right,” Kairi says. She hesitates before she asks the thing that’s been on her mind all day. Vanitas has clearly been working as hard as Aqua, the few times that she had stuck her head into the library. She’s seen enough of Vanitas to know that he doesn’t particularly like the library (Kairi attributes it to the wailing she heard from there when Aqua was teaching him how to read), and she’s still not sure he particularly likes any of them, so… “How come you’re helping out so much with this? I would have thought that you’d be revelling in this chaos.” 

Vanitas looks at her flatly. His eyes aren’t gold any longer, instead the exact same green as Ventus, but there’s something in them right now that reminds her of those times when they faced each other across the field as enemies. 

“What’s it to you?” he sneers. “If I’m helping, you should thank me, not question me.” 

“Just curious,” she says. “Though I am grateful. I saw how hard you were working today.” 

His expression grows stormier. If he were still capable of producing the Unversed, she’s sure that a few would be running across the floor right now. Even so, she waits it out. She’s been subject to both Riku and Sora’s black moods in the past, and she knows that the Vanitas who is sitting across from her is very different to the Vanitas from a few years ago. 

“I just know how shitty it is to be in the wrong body,” he finally says. “You should go back to them. They’re waiting for you.” 

It’s a clear dismissal. Her heart in her throat, she nods tightly and stands. It’s not fleeing, she tells herself, when the other person tells you to go. 

* * *

The biggest room that Ventus had pointed out to them was supposed to be Kairi’s room only, but Sora and Riku have dragged in another bed when she wasn’t looking, and squished the two beds together in such a way that they can probably all fit on it. Sora’s overnight bag is slumped against Riku’s, and she can hear them down the hall in the bathroom. Even with Riku’s voice instead of his own, Sora is still loud and strident and recognisable. She can’t hear the rumble of Riku’s voice, but that might be because of his different body too. 

She’s changed into her own pyjamas, despite them not fitting quite the same. Judging by Sora and Riku’s bags, they’ve probably done the same as her. Kairi has worn Sora and Riku’s things before, but she’s not quite sure that Sora will be able to wear his normal clothes right now. 

Sure enough, when Sora comes through the door, he’s wearing Riku’s clothes, not his own. 

“My stuff doesn’t fit,” he complains, face planting onto the bed. 

“Riku is a lot taller than you,” Kairi agrees. 

Sora lifts a finger to point at her. “Hey, you’re putting me in pink right now, so you can’t say anything.” 

“Is there something wrong with pink?” she asks him dangerously. Sora lets out a _meep_ and shakes his head vigorously, even though he’s still lying face down and it makes him look ridiculous. She clears everything off the bed and finds another two pillows for them to use. Sora remains where he is, even when she pulls the covers back and climbs in. 

“Do you ever think about how weird this is,” Sora says, voice muffled from how his face is pressed into the blankets. 

“Yes,” Kairi says. 

“Well, duh, obviously, but I mean like… Riku is so tall! And has boobs! And now I’m tall and I have boobs! It’s weird!” 

“It’s not your body,” Kairi points out. “You think _your_ body is any less strange to me? I’ve been walking weird all day! And even though we’re about the same height, I think your arms are longer, because I keep scraping my hands on stuff when they aren’t where I expect them to be. And I lost my boobs! Surely that’s comparable to you gaining them.” 

“Maybe,” Sora admits. “Why would someone make something that does this, anyway? What’s the point of swapping hearts with someone?” 

“I don’t know.” She thinks about it for a few seconds. “Maybe it was used to get people to cooperate with each other? Learn to work together or something.” 

“If so, I think this is the lamest team building exercise ever,” Sora sighs. “What’s wrong with a paintball fight?” 

“Maybe when we find what it’s actually called and how to reverse it, we’ll find out the purpose of it as well,” Kairi says. “That would be documented, right?” 

“Probably,” Sora agrees. 

The door creaks open, and Riku slips inside. He’s wearing Sora’s pyjamas instead of his own, which fit Kairi’s slight frame better than Riku’s clothes would, anyway. 

“What are we documenting?” he asks. 

“Why someone would even make something like this,” Sora says, finally sitting up. “I just can’t think of the point!” 

“The point doesn’t matter,” Riku tells him. “What does is that someone made it, and now we’re like this. We’ll sort it out, Sora.” 

Sora grumbles, but climbs up the bed to snuggle in next to Kairi. Riku turns the lamps off and gets in on Sora’s other side. 

“Sora, you’re hogging the bed,” Kairi whispers into the dark. 

“Tell Riku to apologise for being so big then.” 

“I won’t apologise for that.” 

There’s a dull thump that sounds suspiciously like someone hitting someone else with a pillow. Kairi kicks Sora’s shins until he wriggles over slightly. 

“Do you think we’ll ever go back to normal?” Kairi asks, voice tiny in the darkness. There’s a tense silence from the boys, until Riku sighs. 

“Weren’t you the one who told us all to not worry during dinner?” Riku asks. 

“I don’t know,” Kairi mumbles. “I just wanted to try and reassure everyone.” 

“You made sense,” Sora says, his hand finding her own under the covers. “It’s not like this is some random world. Everything here has been used by Keyblade Masters for generations. As much as I don’t like reading, I’m sure that there’s something in the library about this. And Riku and Aqua and Vanitas have been working hard to sort this out.” 

“We’ll fix it,” Riku reassures her. “In the morning. Which will come faster if we all get some rest.” 

“Maybe if your feet weren’t so cold,” Sora mutters. 

“Hey!” Kairi protests. “What are you saying about my feet?!” 

“They’re Riku’s feet at the moment,” Sora splutters. 

“You’re not helping your case.” 

“ _Sleep_ ,” Riku insists. 

Kairi curls up against Sora’s side and closes her eyes, listening to the two of them scuffle for space. After a few seconds they subside, and Sora squeezes her hand. She settles with her head pressed against his shoulder, and closes her eyes. They’re together – and Riku is right. They’ll fix it. They have to. 

* * *

“You know, I’m not really sure this is a good idea.” 

Kairi pushes back a bush to squeeze through the space between two trees, trying to follow the bright red flash of hair up ahead. Riku has borrowed one of Sora’s outfits for their outing today, and it’s like she’s following some amalgam of the three of them – her body, Riku’s heart, and Sora’s clothes. 

“Terra said that he could get into the vault where otherwise only Aqua can go, and the Heartless around here still need to be kept in check,” Riku says. “With the four of us, we’ll just whip around and clean them up, and be back before lunch.” 

“Do you really think Ven and Sora will be fine?” she asks, hopping over a fallen log. 

“They’ll probably make a competition out of how many Heartless they can defeat for the day,” Riku says. “Don’t worry about them. With the large Heartless that was defeated yesterday gone, I don’t think that there will be anything too dangerous out here.” 

“Braveheart is still is a bit unwieldy for you,” Kairi points out. “And I’m not sure how well I can fight as Sora.” 

“I know,” Riku says. “But as long as we’re careful and take it slow, we should be fine. We’ve had a day to get used of these bodies, so we shouldn’t be too clumsy anymore. And look, I borrowed your good luck charm from Sora last night.” He summons his Keyblade, and turns to show it to her. Instead of the long, steel length of Braveheart, Riku is holding Oathkeeper. As she gets closer, she sees that it’s not quite the same as the Oathkeeper that Sora normally summons, the colours slightly deeper and darker, and the guard changed to silvered bat wings instead of angel wings. But it’s still a lot shorter than Braveheart is, and actually looks appropriate in Riku’s hands. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t ask me,” she says, poking her tongue out at him. “It looks good though.” 

“Yeah,” Riku says, looking fondly at the Keyblade before dismissing it. 

“So are we taking it slow, or blitzing through it?” she asks cheekily after a second. 

“Kairi…” 

“Just asking!” 

“It’ll go faster because there’s four of us. We can still take it slow, and it’ll still be faster.” 

“Alright,” she concedes. “But if something bad happens, I’ll blame it on…” she pauses, trying to think of who would really be most at fault. Ventus, for coming up with the idea? Sora, for volunteering? Riku, for agreeing to it? Terra and Aqua, for letting them do it? Her, for going along with it? “All of us.” 

Riku snorts. “I’ll back you up then.” 

A swell of warmth passes through her chest. “Thanks,” she says, trying to make her tone as teasing as possible. 

“No problem.” 

They come out into a clearing, where several Heartless spawn. Kairi swallows but summons her Keyblade, Destiny’s Embrace familiar and warm in her hand. A surge of protectiveness rises within her – Aqua can give her all the dirty looks she likes, but there’s no way Kairi is ever handing over her Keyblade. 

It’s a mix of shadows and neoshadows, pureblood Heartless that she rarely sees. She supposes it makes sense – after all, there are no hearts on this World to devour, so Emblem Heartless would have to come from off-world. Pureblood Heartless can feed off dark energy, which there are still plenty of pockets of scattered throughout this world. She wonders if Aqua will ever be able to get rid of them all.

Riku darts into the fight, a stronger offense than he would normally start with. Kairi steadies herself and shoots a ball of fire to give herself a second to evaluate the enemies, something that she hasn’t needed for a while. She’s usually confident enough to jump right in, but Sora’s body is still strange. She feels queasy all of a sudden. 

Riku cuts through the Heartless efficiently, though she notices that he’s not casting any magic. She leaps, does a twist in the air, and commits to a whirlwind attack that clears all of the Heartless around her, pushing them back. One jumps towards her, and she aims a slice towards it that normally would be something easy, but with Sora’s different arm length she misses. The Heartless hits her full in the face, and she squawks as she goes down. 

“Kairi!” 

She punches the Heartless to get it off of her, and rolls to her feet to dodge strikes from another two. Then she jumps into the air to avoid another, and really does wish that she could glide just like Sora. But even though she tries, to feel the wind and how it would carry her, her jump doesn’t turn into anything else. 

Riku lands by her side, and he bats away the Heartless that are trying to converge on them. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” she says. “My Keyblade just wasn’t where I expected it to be.” She casts another fire spell, and follows it up with a ball of light. The Heartless shy away from that, and Riku uses the opportunity to slice the ones remaining to pieces. 

She checks to make sure the clearing really is empty, then dismisses her Keyblade. “Well,” she starts, then falls silent. 

“Hey, that wasn’t too bad for our first fight,” Riku says. “Right?” 

Kairi kicks at the ground. She hadn’t seen Riku falling on his ass, but then again, she rarely has. Only when taking a hit for someone else was he knocked down that easily. 

“...how were you casting your magic?” he asks after a pause. 

“Huh?” Kairi asks. “Just like normal. Call up the spell, let it sit in your heart to gather power, cast it. Why?” 

Riku is still holding his Oathkeeper. He frowns down at it. “I can’t feel my magic.” 

“What?” She takes a step over to him and puts a hand on his arm. “What do you mean?” 

He lifts his Keyblade and points, narrowing his eyes, but nothing happens. 

“I’m trying to cast like normal too, but nothing is happening.” He hesitates. “I think… our hearts have moved bodies, but these bodies are still the same. Kairi, I don’t think your body can host any darkness at all, even with your heart absent.” 

“Do you use darkness for all your magic?” Kairi asks him. 

Riku nods. “Not a lot, but it’s how I channel my power. After everything that’s happened, that’s easiest and quickest for me. I remember…” He stops, looking at the opposite side of the clearing so he won’t have to look at her. 

“Riku?” she asks gently. 

“When I was guarding your body at Hollow Bastion, all those years ago,” he says all in a rush. “Your heart was gone, but your body was still full of light. The Heartless never went near you, because there was nothing for them to take. I stood guard over you, but I never needed to. Even if I had left you alone there, nothing would have touched you.” 

“Oh,” she says. Riku never talks about that time, unless he really has to. “I suppose that makes sense. Our hearts aren’t the only thing that makes up who we are. Our bodies are a part of that too.” 

“Hm,” Riku agrees. “It’s annoying, but I should be fine without magic for now. I still have potions that I can use if needed, and by the looks of things you’ve got enough firepower to keep the Heartless at bay.” 

She grins at him. “Yeah! It’s why we’re such a great team.” 

He nods. “Okay. Let’s go – I don’t think those are the last Heartless that we’ll find in these woods.” 

Riku’s right. They fight their way through another few battles, and with each one Kairi feels more and more comfortable in this body. Sometimes she’ll twitch and feel something before it’s coming, or she’ll land a certain way that will make leaping into her next combo easier. Even though Sora isn’t here, she still feels like he’s watching out for her, his body keeping her safe. It kindles a warmth in her heart that she leans on during the fights. 

Just as they’re wrapping up another skirmish, she hears an explosion from nearby. Riku finishes off the last of the Heartless that they were fighting, and comes to her side. She looks at him, worried. 

“Should we check that out?” 

He nods. “It might be Sora and Ven. If they’re having trouble with something, we should help.” 

They cut through the bush, Kairi following as close as she can to Riku. They come out on another path, and then she hears something that is probably Ventus yelling. She and Riku take off down the path towards the sound, trying to balance speed with their stamina, so they won’t arrive tired to whatever is going down. 

They round a corner, and find another giant Heartless, just like the one that Terra, Ventus, and Vanitas took down yesterday. Except now they’re nowhere near the castle, and Terra and Vanitas aren’t going to come and be their backup. Luckily for Sora and Ventus, Kairi and Riku are here to help. 

It lifts its head and roars, the blue mane that trails down its back flashing brightly. “It doesn’t like ice and it’s resistant to fire!” she yells at Riku. Even though he can’t cast magic at the moment, he might be able to use the knowledge in some way. He splits off from her, going around to the front of the Heartless to try and provoke its attention to give Sora and Ventus a little breathing space. Kairi stands her ground and fires up the strongest ice spell she can manage. It’ll be good to hit it hard and fast, before it knows that she’s there. 

“Hiya!” she yells, shooting the ice towards it. She follows it up with another spell, and both hit in succession, making the Heartless roar. It turns to face her, but then Riku flips in front of it and hits it on the nose, drawing its attention. 

“Kairi!” Sora yells, executing a doubleflight to leap to her side. 

“You okay?” she asks. Sora fires off a lightning spell, and Ventus creates a whirlwind to bounce off, spinning through the air in a deadly spiral and landing with a loud impact on the Heartless’s flank. 

Riku lets out a giant slash, and Kairi jumps towards him. They’ve always worked well together, but without his magic they can’t perform a limit like they normally do. Still, she falls in step with him, and they pivot around each other, dancing to the tune of their hearts. She pulls her light magic to the surface, lets it coat her Keyblade and his, and they twirl in a flurry of blades. With a parting slash they execute a double strike that ends with them on different sides of the Heartless. 

“Woah! Nice footwork,” Ventus says, dodge rolling past her and sending out seeker mines to detonate on the Heartless. “You guys really work well together!” 

“Thanks,” Kairi says, already calling on her deeper magic for a strong blizzard spell. Sora and Riku are working together on its other side, and Kairi only just manages to jump as it spins in place, its long tail whipping around. Sora lets out a wild cry from somewhere, and her heart leaps into her throat. 

“Sora!” she calls out, casting her blizzaga. There’s no answer besides Riku’s snarl. 

“Kairi, give me a boost!” Ventus calls, light beginning to whip around him. She scoots to his side and puts her hands on his shoulders, joining their light together. Even though Ventus is no longer pure light, the touches of darkness in his heart are low and soft, tenacious but still finding it difficult to stick to him. Their inherent magic is still compatible, and she swirls their energies together easily. Ventus holds his Keyblade out in front of him and the wind around them grows into something bright and powerful, flecks of pure light magic joining it. 

“Eat this!” 

Ventus casts the whirlwind of light towards the Heartless, just as she hears something else; a low, rumbling, dark, sound that makes the animal part of her cower. 

The whirlwind strikes the Heartless, and there’s a ripping sound from the other side of it, and it howls. A second later and the Heartless fades, the heart that it was holding captive spiralling up into the sky. 

She hi-fives Ventus, who dismisses his Keyblade and tucks his hands behind his neck, just like Sora does. She looks away so she won’t have to think too deeply on how similar some of their mannerisms are, and looks to find Riku and Sora. 

“Hey, where’d the other guys go?” Ventus asks, peering around himself. Kairi jogs over to where she’d seen the both of them last, but besides a few skip marks and scuffs in the dirt, there’s no evidence of them to be seen. 

“Into the forest?” she murmurs to herself. Looking closer, there’s a part of the undergrowth that’s been recently trampled, and she starts off in that direction, ducking under a tree branch and trying to see anything that might lead her in the right direction. “Sora? Riku?”

“You see anything?” Ventus asks. 

“No,” Kairi says. “But they went this way. I can tell.” It’s something in the air – a scent that she associates with Sora, though not always. It’s the way that he changes, when a black mood is upon him. The ache that’s been sitting in her chest twinges, responding to it. 

The two of them bush bash for a few hundred metres until Kairi hears a yowl. She changes direction and doesn’t bother moving slowly anymore, pulling out her Keyblade and airstepping through the trees, towards the sounds of another fight. There’s a pain in her heart all of a sudden, and she stumbles to a stop, panting and holding a hand over it, like that will make it better. 

Ventus shoots past her, and she forces herself to stand and keep going. He pushes through another few bushes and she follows him, squinting as the sun hits her eyes. They’ve emerged into a small clearing, where Riku is standing, Keyblade out and in a defensive position. 

A shadow twists through the air and Riku only manages to get up half a barrier in time before it smashes into him, sending him tumbling across the clearing. Ventus leaps forward, Keyblade zinging to life, but Riku finds his feet and reaches out his hand. “ _Wait!_ ” 

“What _is_ that?” Ventus asks, fear caking his voice. Kairi stumbles a step forward, the pain in her heart moving to her head and creating a splitting headache that she can barely see through. There’s a shadow that she can barely make out, a moving thing that hovers lightly above the ground when it jumps, something that makes her shudder. 

“It’s Sora,” Riku says grimly. “I’ve seen him like this before – he just needs a little time to calm down and he’ll be back to normal.” 

“Back to normal?” Ventus splutters. Kairi makes it to Riku’s side, and he double takes when he sees her. 

“Kairi? What’s wrong?” 

“I… can’t…” she says. She doesn’t know what she can’t do – anything? That sounds about right. 

“Kairi!” Riku says, dispelling his Keyblade and catching her when she falls. She curls up around the light beating within him, the familiarity of it calling to her. It’s her body that he’s wearing, so it should be familiar. She puts her hand against his chest and tries to feel past that light, to Riku’s heart that she knows is beating within. 

“Sora’s… body…” she manages, and Riku’s expression grows grim. 

“I’ll protect you,” he says, laying her carefully on the ground. “Ventus!”

“I’m a little busy!” 

Kairi throws her arm over her eyes and tries to remember how to breathe. There’s the sounds of a fight going on, which she would normally deem important, but it’s hard to think of anything as important now, not when there’s this burning pain inside of her. She’s always been a creature of light. The darkness has always fled from her touch, which is useful when she’s purifying things, when she’s rushing into danger. What does it mean, when that darkness is trapped under her very skin? She can feel it writhing, twisting and eager to get out. She’s never had a problem with the darkness before, but they’ve never been more than acquaintances, speaking over a divide. They were never meant to venture so close to one another. 

There’s a ripping growl, and she hears Riku begging and Ventus yelling. “Sora! Sora!” One of them shouts, but she only puts her hands over her ears and wishes that it would just stop. 

“Kairi,” Riku says, close and near and she clings to him, as he lifts her. “Kairi, I need your help. You have to call to him. My voice can’t reach him alone. But together, we might be able to do it.” 

Riku puts her hand on something writhing and dark and she spasms, before a gentle light calms her. It’s coming from somewhere deep within her heart, a well of strength that she knows is there but so rarely has to rely upon. 

“Sora,” she says, burying a hand in his shadows, seeking out his heart. If she can grasp it, bring it back to the surface, maybe he can wrest control back once more. “Sora, where are you?” 

“Sora, come back to me,” Riku says, sounding like he’s dying. She tightens her hold on both of them, and lets her light act as a bridge between them all – the trapped flutterings of Riku’s heart, the pulsating depths of Sora. 

She hears Sora gasp, before everything goes dark.

* * *

She’s alone when she wakes up. 

Kairi blinks groggily at the ceiling, trying to make out the patterns that are swirling and overtaking each other. That keeps her busy for who knows how long, until she realises that she’s thinking, which must mean that she’s awake, which must mean that she’s somewhere. She turns her head, and it’s more of an ordeal than it should be. 

The room is empty, but her things, and Sora and Riku’s things, are scattered about. She’s on one of the beds that they had pushed together, except someone had separated them, and the other one has sheets pressed so pristinely that only magic could have achieved it. Aqua’s work, then. 

“Ugh,” she says, tasting her mouth and feeling out her vocal range. “I feel like shit.” 

There’s no one to answer her, so she supposes that she’ll have to get up and find something to drink herself. The bathroom is only just down the hallway, but the distance seems insurmountable. And there’s something wrong with her body – it’s only when she lifts a hand and sees Sora’s does she remember the events of the past few days. Well, most of them. 

She gets as far as sitting up and putting her feet on the floor before someone opens the door and freezes. She looks up to find Aqua, a worried set to her expression. 

“Kairi,” she says. “You’re awake.” 

Kairi doesn’t bother answering, seeing as the evidence speaks for itself. Aqua waves a hand and a dozen things happen, objects tidying themselves into neat piles, clothes folding in mid-air, a vase already full of flowers floating through the door. Kairi is mesmerised by it all for a few seconds, but then a tray with food on it comes through the door and she fixates on that. 

“Drink slowly,” Aqua advises, giving her a glass of water. Kairi tries to obey, taking one gulp of water at a time and swallowing completely before going in for another. The sandwich that Aqua is holding is gone almost as fast, and Kairi sighs, rolling the empty cup around in her hands and feeling more awake and alive. 

“You both gave us quite the scare when Ven and Riku brought you back to the castle. What do you remember?” 

“Fighting a really big Heartless with Riku, Ven, and Sora,” Kairi says, rubbing a hand across her face. “We beat it, and then it all gets fuzzy.” 

“There were complications that we had not foreseen,” Aqua says quietly. “I can only apologise to you for my negligence.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Kairi tries to say. “You didn’t know.” 

“This is my castle,” Aqua tells her firmly. “All actions undertaken under this roof are my responsibility.”

Kairi doesn’t know how to answer that. She doesn’t want to have Aqua in her debt, not when they can barely look at each other. “Have you figured out a way to change us back?” she asks instead. Aqua shakes her head. 

“I think we’re getting closer.” Aqua’s eyes are sympathetic. “I’ve been sorting through the books. Vanitas and Riku have been helping, and Sora and Terra have been too. I’ll go and let them know that you’re awake.” 

She leaves, and Kairi puts the cup on the bedside table. Maybe someone else will come by, who she won’t mind pestering with questions. 

She doesn’t have to wait too long before the door creaks open again. It feels like a weight off her shoulders when she meets Riku’s eyes. He’s wearing Sora’s clothes instead of Kairi’s skirts, which does make looking at her own face feel a little less strange. 

“Hey,” he says. “How are you feeling?” 

“Okay,” she answers, fiddling with the edge of the sheet. “Head’s a bit fuzzy. How’s Sora?” 

“Better than you,” Riku says. “You’ve been knocked out since yesterday morning – it’s lunchtime now. You feeling hungry?” 

“Aqua brought me something to eat,” she says. No wonder she had been so hungry. “Any update?” 

Riku shakes his head. “No. We’ve been looking, but…” 

She lets out a sigh of frustration. “But no luck. How many books does this place even have?” 

“A lot,” Riku says wryly. “Trust me, the library is bigger than it looks. And I think that when this place got turned into Castle Oblivion, a few things got messed around. I keep finding books in sections that they aren't supposed to be in. Which means that the one we’re looking for could be anywhere.” 

“You’re filling me with confidence,” Kairi says. “Here, help me up.” 

She leans against him as she stands, knees wobbly. She’s still wearing Sora’s clothes, but different ones than what she went out in. She wriggles her bare toes against the floor and rounds on Riku. “Okay. Now tell me what the hell all that was about.” 

Riku grimaces. “You know that Sora deals with his darkness in different ways to me. And Aqua thinks that our hearts and our bodies aren’t so separate after all.” He pokes her in the chest, and then again on the forehead. “Remember how we were talking about the reasons why I couldn’t use magic? The only explanation that we can come up with is that Sora’s heart was expressing his darkness in his usual way, but my body didn’t know how to deal with that, and Sora’s body was resonating with him. You were affected so deeply because you’re normally not exposed to darkness at all, which is the same reason I can’t use magic. I channel spells through my connection to the darkness, but this body just _can’t_ do that.” He shrugs. “We know, now. We’ll just have to keep it under control.” 

She looks at him. “So are you going to help? You promised.” 

He frowns, nose going all cute and wrinkly. “Help with what?” 

“Blaming everyone when something goes wrong,” she says seriously. 

Riku rolls his eyes at her. “Haha, very funny.” 

“I’m at least fifty percent serious,” Kairi says. She lets go of Riku’s arm and takes a few steps, feeling better with each one. She stretches her arms up above her head and twists her back. Even if Riku hadn’t told her that she’d been in bed for over a day, she would have suspected from how tense she is. 

“So, any other big updates I should know about?” 

“Not really. Ven is helping Terra with the Heartless clean up today, so they’re both out in the forest. Vanitas is tearing through the books–”

“Literally?” Kairi asks, morbidly interested to know how Aqua would kill him for damaging the library like that. 

“Metaphorically,” Riku corrects her. “But he doesn’t like company when he’s reading, so things just disappear into his corner and don’t come back until he throws them out. I’ve found a few things that would be really interesting if, you know, we weren’t focusing on trying to figure out how to fix all this.” He sighs. 

She studies him for a second, his downturned eyes and how his hands are clenched into fists at his sides. “How are you doing?” 

“Fine,” he says, and she goes to stand next to him. How strange for him to be shorter than her! What a change from how things normally are. When his head is at this height, he’s normally kneeling or sitting. She looks down at her own red hair, and wonders if it would be weird to thread her fingers through it. It’s her hair, right? She touches it normally.

“Riku,” she says, in the tone of voice that she uses to make sure her boyfriends know she’s not tolerating any more nonsense. 

He kicks at the floor aimlessly. “Just frustrated, I guess. That we were unlucky enough for this to happen to us, that it’s taking so long to fix it, that–”

He cuts himself off, looking uncomfortable. 

“What?” 

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.” 

She looks at him. Riku meets her eyes for a long few seconds. Even when he’s wearing her face, she still knows him well enough to see the anxiety eating away at him, something else that he won’t admit to. It looks different on her, something about the set of her jaw and the tilt of her eyebrows that changes her face into something she barely recognises at all.

“What is it?” she asks gently. “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone else if you don’t want me to, I promise.” 

He lets out an explosive sigh. “It’s stupid. It’s just – if we had to go through all of this, if we had to switch bodies, and walk around as each other, how come,” he makes a strangled sound. “No offence Kairi, but why did I have to be _you?_ Why… why couldn’t I have been put into Sora’s body? Then… then…” 

“Riku,” Kairi says, heart breaking. He sits down heavily on the bed.

“I told you it was stupid,” he mutters. “Maybe – maybe it’s better this way. Just like the eggs. If I don’t know what I’m missing out on, then maybe it won’t hurt as much.” Unspoken, _but it hurts anyway_ , hovers between them.

She sits down next to him, unsure what to say. It’s not wrong for him to wish that he’d been put in Sora’s body, not when he spends so much time agonising over how he normally looks, how he presents himself, how he walks and talks. She doesn’t know what she would do if she was trapped inside Sora’s body permanently. It’s just the seven of them on this World, when everyone knows everyone else and what has happened. But going somewhere else – everyone would assume that she’s a boy, when that’s not true.

She looks down at her hands and thinks about what it would be like, if they just don’t find a way to change back. Her throat closes on nothing. She _loves_ Sora, but she doesn’t want to be him. She doesn’t want to be trapped inside someone else’s body, forever.

Riku is staring at the wall in front of him, not looking at her. “It’s just the cherry on top of the rest of the shit that’s going on right now. And I don’t want to be dealing with it, but–”

“These things don’t let you pick when to deal with them,” she finishes for him. 

“Yeah.” He deflates, slumping over. In her body, it makes him even smaller than he already is. “Sorry.” 

She wraps her arms around him. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Thank you for sharing with me.” 

“I’m worried about what will happen if we don’t change back,” he mumbles. “I don’t want you and Sora to go through the same things I have.”

She hugs him fiercely, then. Sometimes it humbles her, the weight and the deepness of the love that Riku holds for her. She knows that she loves him and Sora, but sometimes it scares her, the depths of devotion that the two of them have taken upon themselves. Especially in situations like this, when she doesn’t know how to get across what she’s really feeling.

It takes another second, but his arm comes to rest on her shoulders and tug her closer. She buries her head into the crook of his neck, and his hand comes to rest in her hair. 

“We’re going to find a way out of this,” she promises.

Riku is quiet. She barely manages to stop herself from saying that they won’t be stuck like this forever – in context, it just might make him sadder.

“Are you okay?” she asks instead. She feels Riku’s breath against her hair, a silent sigh. 

“Like I said before,” he answers, voice equally as quiet. “I’m fine. I just want things to go back to normal. At least I know how to deal with those problems.” 

“We can deal with all our problems together,” she tells him firmly. “If there’s anything I can do to help, you have to tell me, alright?” She leans back enough so that she can poke him in the chest. “Especially right now. You can’t go around wearing my body and then leave me out of these things!” 

A small smile graces his mouth. “Heh. Okay, I promise I’ll let you know if I think of anything.” 

She nods firmly. “Good. Now cuddle me for a little longer, I’ve missed this.” 

He tucks her head under his chin, even though they have to sit at an awkward angle to do so. “Anything you want,” he mumbles. 

They sit there for a while, just breathing together. Wrapped in Riku’s arms, it’s hard to feel like there’s any problems at all. Kairi is just on the edge of falling asleep again when the door bursts open and Sora leaps inside, vibrating so intensely that he’s hopping from foot to foot in excitement. 

“Guys! Aqua found it! She found the way to undo the spell!” 

Kairi jolts upright, hitting her head against Riku’s chin painfully as she does so. Sora pulls her to her feet and hugs her tightly. “Hey!” she laughs. 

“I’m glad you’re awake,” he grins. “That means that we should be able to go ahead with it right away!” 

“Are you doing okay after yesterday?” she asks, patting him down to find anything out of the ordinary. 

He gives her a thumbs up. “Yep. Aqua helped me with a bunch of healing and cleansing spells that she used to use on Ven and Vani. And since I’m going back to my normal body, it shouldn’t be a problem anymore!”

“Great,” she says. “Riku? You ready?” 

It takes a second, but he nods. “Yeah,” he says. “C’mon. Let’s go.” 

* * *

The magic egg looks just the same as Kairi remembers. 

Aqua and Vanitas have cleared a large area in the library, so there’s a few clear meters for them to use. Terra and Ventus arrived just in time to meet up with Kairi, Sora, and Riku as they ran towards the library, so everyone is here. Aqua is standing in front of the magic egg, murmuring under her breath with her Keyblade held out formally in front of her. 

“So it just needs to be juiced up again?” Ventus says, in the loudest whisper that Kairi has ever heard. 

“Yes,” Vanitas answers. “Now shut up, she’s concentrating.” 

Magic is beginning to glisten around Aqua, gathering in the air to delicately swirl around her. Kairi feels it thicken, and she deliberately closes her mouth to avoid chewing on it. Riku grabs her wrist, and she reaches out to Sora, who leans back against her. 

“ _Release!_ ” 

The magic funnels out of the air, into Aqua, and through her, to the magic egg. Kairi winces as the light grows too bright for her to see, but then it fades away. Aqua staggers, and Terra is there a moment later to catch her. 

“I’ve sped up the process,” Aqua says. “Does it look about how it did?” 

“Yeah,” Kairi says. There’s a pulsating core to the glass, a heart that’s beating in time to a rhythm that feels just out of reach, drawing her in. She looks away from it, trying to get her thoughts back in order. She must still be tired. 

“Do we do the same thing we did last time?” Sora asks. “Just, grab it?” 

“It rotated us in a specific order,” Riku says. He’s holding the scroll that describes the use of the body-swapping magic glass egg, studying it intently. “We need to go to the opposite positions of where we were, otherwise I’ll end up in Sora’s body, Kairi will end up in my body, and Sora will end up in Kairi’s body.” 

“Which way were we standing?” Sora asks, squinting at the magic egg. 

“You were across from me, and Riku was on my left,” Kairi says. “So… if I went into your body, that means that this time I need to be on the left side of my body.” 

They arrange themselves, and Aqua goes over the scroll one more time to make sure this is how it’s done, and Ventus asks them if they’re sure they want to change back, and Vanitas starts a fight with him, and Terra breaks them up, before they actually go to do it. Kairi takes a deep breath and places her hands on one of the hovering rings that surround the magic egg, just like she did when they were going to try and move it. It seems like that was so long ago, even though it’s only been a few days,. Sora grabs a ring too, and finally Riku follows, completing their circle. 

Nothing happens. 

“It did take a few seconds, last time,” Kairi says. It sounds awfully like she’s trying to convince herself, more than anything. 

“It did,” Riku confirms quietly. “Just don’t let go, and we–” 

A blinding light explodes from the glass with no warning. Kairi thinks that this time she might even feel it – how she’s pulled from Sora’s body, how her heart floats and moves across the rings, and is deposited inside a new body with an explosive force. She’s blown back and lands hard on her side, her breath pushes out of her with a hard _oof._

She blinks up at the ceiling. Terra is hovering over her, saying something, but she's mostly just hearing a high, ringing sound. She rolls over and tries not to panic as everything feels strange all of a sudden, pushes herself up, and looks down. 

She’s still wearing Sora’s clothes. But that’s alright, because when she looks up to find her boyfriends, she sees the two of them, which can only mean that she’s back in her own body. She lets out a shaky breath.

“Yeah! It worked!” she cheers. Aqua looks up at her from where she’s casting cure on Riku, and nods. Terra pulls her to her feet, and Kairi admires the planes of her hands, and how good it feels to have hair that once again behaves according to the laws of physics. She tugs on the edge of her shirt, and resists the urge to smack her forehead when she realises that Sora didn’t put a bra on this morning.

Sora and Riku clamber to their feet, and Kairi laughs as she’s swept up in a group hug, their arms around each other. “We’re back!” Sora shouts, and Riku huffs out a laugh that sounds like Riku again, and then she’s crying, for no reason at all. Their hearts are warm and familiar and so are their arms around her and their hands, and it’s really, really good to be in a world that once more makes sense.

“I’m glad to be back,” she sniffles, and Sora presses a kiss against her cheek and Riku’s hand presses warm and steady against the small of her back, and she thinks that nothing could ever change this. “Sora, give me back my necklace!”

Sora laughs, and she has to take it off because he can’t manage the clasp. With it around her neck once again, everything settles into place, easily and smoothly. She feels like she can stand up straight again, a weight lifted off her shoulders.

“Great,” Sora says, nodding seriously. “Awesome. Now if no one minds, I’m going to go and eat some eggs.”

Kairi looks at Riku, who is shaking his head at Sora, and relaxes. Once again, things are back to normal, and all is right with the world. The problems of the past few days have been replaced with their usual problems and issues, and once more they’ll have to keep working together to solve them, just like they always have. 

She wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was supposed to be under 5k and just a discussion of How Body Swapping Narratives Are Inherently Trans, but then it got away from me and now here it is. I have a lot of Thoughts about it, as you have just read, and if you’re trans I hope you feel seen, and if you’re not trans I hope you understand a little more than you did before you started. I am now very sad every time I eat eggs, which I think is probably an achievement somehow. Anyway, I think this is genuinely my favourite thing that I’ve written this year, and hopefully you enjoyed it too!


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